British wunderwaffe not doing so well after encountering mud (archived)

from the fucking Sun of all places (although most of the article is fawning about it, not sure how these bits slipped through, like it's literally an article titled "UP FOR THE CHALLENGE" and then halfway through it's like "yeah, it sinks in mud and breaks down all the time and we can't even get the spare parts")

But Kayfarick said the downside was the Challenger’s size and weight. At 64 tons it is roughly the same as a German Leopard 2 and a US Abrams M1A2 — but 20 tons heavier than a Russian T-80 and with a 30 per cent lower power-to-weight ratio. Despite its 26litre V12 diesel engine producing a whopping 1,200 horsepower, the crews in Ukraine said the Challenger 2 struggled with mobility. The squadron’s chief engineer, who uses the call sign Chol, said: “There are pluses and minuses with everything, and the minus is its mobility — its ability to manoeuvre across ground. “They keep getting stuck in the mud because it is so heavy.”

note that the ones in British service with all of the armor upgrades installed are 75 tons, so uh, that doesn't bode well

The crew invited The Sun to clamber aboard and we sat on the turret as the Challenger 2 roared over the countryside and its gun circled round the clock. But we soon saw what the soldiers meant about mobility when it sank into a bog. Kayfarick blasted the rookie crew for going too slowly though a gully, though they said they only went slowly for fear of bucking us off.

...

But the Challenger squadron revealed to The Sun that only seven of the 14 tanks donated in March 2023 are still fighting fit. Besides the one which was destroyed by a Lancet suicide drone in September — luckily the crew survived and the tank’s burnt-out hull was recovered — another was assigned to a training unit elsewhere in Ukraine. Two others were damaged in battle but have since been repaired, including one that had its barrel replaced.

But a bigger problem is reliability. Five have broken down and Kayfarick said spare parts from Britain sometimes take months to arrive and he had a shortage of skilled mechanics to keep the hardware fighting fit. He said: “It takes a long time to get spares. The logistics are very complex, at this end and your end.” And he revealed that a chronic shortage of fresh soldiers on the front lines meant trained tank crew had been removed from their vehicles in order to dig trenches for the infantry. Kayfarick said rubber pads on the tanks’ tracks and the wheels kept on wearing out. He said: “The parts in the turret and the parts of precision aiming are also not so long-lasting. They have been breaking from the start.”

the start of the article (which I've skipped in the quotes here) is all about how amazingly precise the cannon is, except it turns out the parts needed for that break really fast, nice

...

Kayfarick said the Challenger 2 did not have the right type of ammunition for attacking infantry. ... He added that he feared commanders had failed to grasp that Nato tanks were built for different roles from Soviet ones. He said: “Soviet tanks are battle machines built for multiple tasks. British and Nato tanks are mostly about sniping — tank versus tank.” Kayfarick and his crews were in the UK last winter training with British tank crews. But he said Ukraine’s top brass were torn between “the completely different approach of the Soviet school and the Nato school of fighting.” He said: “The main problem for Challenger 2s on the battle ground is a commander who doesn’t understand what it was designed for, what are its pros and cons.”

love to make a tank that costs over 4 million bucks and yet is also a highly specialized delicate little thing that can only ever do one job